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St. Louis superintendent: New Orleans schools job is not appealing

Kelvin Adams

Kelvin Adams, now St. Louis public schools superintendent, when he was chief of staff for Louisiana's Recovery School District. People wanted him to apply to be Orleans Parish superintendent, but he said the lack of vision and direction at the School Board made the job a hard sell for a national figure.
(Ellis Lucia, The Times-Picayune)

The School Board's uncertain future "gives people pause," he said Wednesday.

Adams, a former Recovery School District chief of staff, was the most talked-about possibility in a superintendent search that has stalled. After interviewing four candidates in March, School Board members haven't so much as mentioned the room's elephant in six weeks - neither at its April meetings nor its May committees Thursday. Interim Superintendent Stan Smith is weeks away from marking his two-year anniversary holding down the fort.

Adams didn't even apply, even though "I love New Orleans. It's home," he said. He acknowledged that "obviously" he'd had conversations about the job. He visits New Orleans this weekend to speak at the first awards breakfast of the Alliance of Diversity and Excellence.

Though New Orleans is a hotbed of education reform, the applicants have been notably low-wattage: largely school leaders and lower-level central office staff. Seven additional applications came in over the last month, raising the total to 57: principals from Maryland, Georgia and Connecticut; a Trenton, N.J., assistant superintendent; the chief academic officer from Shelby, Ga.; and the secondary education director in San Lorenzo, Calif.

All along, this School Board has received criticism for not setting a vision at what could be a key transition point in New Orleans public school leadership. Eight-plus years after taking over more than 80 percent of New Orleans' public schools, Recovery School District is shifting to a smaller role: overseeing charters, managing a centralized enrollment system, renovating buildings and reforming a truancy center.

But under the presidency of Ira Thomas, the board spent 2013 first fighting and then waiting. In November, after a series of focus groups, executive consultant Bill Attea told the School Board members they wouldn't get strong candidates without coming together to set priorities for city schools, including a plan for a future in which the systems might just be unified again.

Adams echoed that criticism. He said those reservations were shared widely by top administrators, who were reluctant to put themselves into a situation whose outcome was so unclear.

"OPSB sits out there as a district people wonder about," he said. "I think people are saying, well, what is going to happen next?"

When he took the St. Louis job, there were, as Donald Rumsfeld might say, known unknowns. But with Orleans Parish, applicants face unknown unknowns. "They don't know how they fit into it with the number of uncertainties that exist," he said. "I don't think it causes people to not consider (applying) but I think it gives people pause."

While the Orleans Parish district is small - only 11,000 students -- boosters such as Rayne Martin of Stand for Children have dangled the plum that the job could become much bigger should successful state takeover charters opt to return to local control - a move that could be much more imminent with a rock-star superintendent.

Was that message getting through? "No. No. No," Adams said. "I don't get the impression that that's the plan."

School Board President Nolan Marshall maintained his optimism Thursday after a set of meetings that largely addressed school buildings and charter school assessments, with a side dose of power struggles. "It's proven to be a little bit more of a challenge getting good candidates to apply but we're still very hopeful," he said.

He said a new set of interviews might take place as soon as May 22. Six members have agreed on that date, and Marshall was awaiting confirmation from the seventh.